Poems in a Changing Climate: To Celebrate World Poetry Day 2010

World Poetry Day was declared by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 1999 “to promote the reading, writing, publishing and teaching of poetry throughout the world”  identified as “the unrestricted pursuit of truth”.

Whilst poetry has been used as a tool for social change throughout history, it is important to remember the one in five adults that are illiterate in the world today. As Leif Utne from Worldchanging states: “access to education, or rather the lack of it, is one of the greatest barriers to sustainability”.

Below are a selection of modern day poems, slams and haiku’s that have been recommended by CAT staff and facebook fans that address our changing climate.

Danny Chivers; climate activist, poet and writer performs Lifestyle Choice at Climate Camp In The City 2009:

Less is More, was written by Matt Harvey; poet, writer, broadcaster and Wondermentalist, inspired by the Schumacher conference of the same title:

Can less be more, can more be less?
Well, yes and no, and no and yes
Well, more or less…

More bikes, fewer cars
Less haze, more stars

Less haste, more time
Less reason, more rhyme

More time, less stress
Fewer miles, more fresh (vegetables)

Fewer car parks, more acres of available urban soil
More farmers’ markets, less produce effectively marinated in crude oil

Less colouring, more taste
More mashing, less waste

Fewer couch potatoes, more spring greens
Fewer tired tomatoes, more runner beans

More stillness, less inertia
Less illness, more Echinacea

More community, less isolation
Less just sitting there, more participation!

More wells (not oil ones, obviously), fewer ills
Fewer clean fingernails, more skills

More co-operation, less compliancy
Less complacency, more self-reliancy

Less competition, more collaboration
Less passive listening, more participation!

Less attention defic…, more concentration
Less passive listening, more participation!

(Less repetition)

Less of a warm globe, more a chilly’un
More of a wise world, at least 34 fewer parts of C02 per million

Less stress-related cardio-vascular and pulmonary failure
More nurturing quality time in the company of a favourite clematis or dahlia

More craftsmanship, less built-in obsolescence
More political maturity, less apparently-consequence-free extended adolescence

More believed-to-be-beautiful, known-to-be-useful things
Less cheap, pointless, petroleum-steeped stuff

So Yes, less is more – and enough’s enough…

Marcus Brigstocke (Radio 4’s The Now Show) recites his somewhat humorous take on The events at Cop 15 in Dr Seuss style:

Change For Dinner was written by our facebook fan John J Macdonald:

Canopy’s were constructed from timber
Allowing entrees of coal, oil and gas
Leading to mammoth heaps of cooked cinders
From every kind of conceivable mass.

The result of this main course is desert
Which appears when we clear the plates
Having licked them so clean they are inert
We advance to new portions which await.

Yet the yeast offers proof in the kitchen
That our bread will not rise when its cooked.
Raw materials frozen in fiction
Seldom ever taste as good as they looked…

On and on, baking ‘sustainable growth’?
How many cooks? and who’s using their loaf?

Untitled is from another facebook fan John McCreesh:

Gordon is red
David is blue
The climate is changing
But can they change too?

Sea Inside was written by CAT’s very own Bruce Heagerty:

“Nature for us lies more in depth than on the surface” – Paul Cézanne

Excuse me but..

Your feet pace on a fireball
That your roots are pushing through;
Your heart beats to a rhythm
That the moon distracts in you;

Remember You
Are Nature through and through.

The water in that river
Is the stuff that pumps round you;
You imbibe it and return it
To the blue-reflecting Blue,

You know it’s true,
You’re Nature through and through.

Your skin anoints the air
That blesses every blade with dew;
Your breath is synthesised by trees
And then returned to breath in you,

You twig that You
Are Nature through and through.

You feed on farmer’s harvests,
- you defecate them, too -
Expend the juice on just one lifetime
And so everything you do

Is down to you,
As Nature through and through.

Your senses sense each atom of the world
And they feel you;
Energy flows outwards
From the sun and flows through you

And glistering You
Are Nature through and through.

Your fingers zing with zephyrs
That butterflies flit through
And birds perch on your branches, singing
“Are you singing, too?”

Sing out that You
Are Nature through and through.

You smile at potent partners,
Feel the lava rise in you
And later sleepily you touch
Them in your silent moments, too,

You know you do:
You’re Nature through and through.

Divine your journey with the care
That Nature took in making you;
When you die you’ll touch the sky
And your remains will pay their due,

Ensuring You
Abide with Nature, as we do.

Now Nature packs a punch
That Nagasaki never knew
Let he who wakens up the krakens
Be no friend to yours or you,

Recalling You
Are linked with Nature through and through.

Your children and their children
Are all captive in this zoo;
Will you leave them playing with krakens
Or is there something you can do?

Yes

Accept that You
Are tangled in this Blue.

And finally on World Water Day no selection is complete without a line from the epic Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge:

…Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink…

Post your favourite climate change poems in the blog comments.